


to my father, who's coming home

by alpacamybags



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Castiel is Jack Kline's Parent, Gen, Sort Of, Time Travel, au of a ds9 episode, but you don't have to have seen it to follow this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-18 19:41:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29123595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alpacamybags/pseuds/alpacamybags
Summary: As time runs out, Jack tells a story. A story that began on the day his father died.
Relationships: Castiel & Jack Kline, Jack Kline & Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	to my father, who's coming home

**Author's Note:**

> This is an AU of the Deep Space Nine episode "The Visitor" with Jack as Jake and Cas as Ben that my brain randomly demanded I write. You don't need to have seen the episode to follow this, but I'd for sure recommend watching it at some point. (I mean, if you're here you're probably already a sucker for fictional father/son relationships ;)) And, if by chance you have seen it, you know what's coming. Basically I just switched up some plot details to fit the spn universe, but kept the premise the same and attempted the same style. The title is a line from that episode as well.  
> I don't know when this diverges from? Sometime in season 14 but without any of the plot issues regarding Jack's soul, Michael, Chuck, etc.  
> This is somewhat experimental, since I've never tried au-ing like this before, but I hope it's as heart wrenching as it's intended to be.

On the outskirts of Lebanon, Kansas, along a long-since abandoned road, a young woman dashed through the rain.

Dashed wasn’t quite the right word. No, she was picking her way carefully through the underbrush, one foot after the other so that she didn’t fall in the mud.

The road, once a cracked length of dry pavement like any other, was an obsolete route these days. The girl supposed she could have taken any other mode of transportation to get here, but she couldn’t risk missing her destination. She had to find him.

The door she sought was set back in the woods, off a section of the road slightly less overgrown than the others. A few branches poked up from the ground below, a minefield for visitors without the right shoes. Not that she suspected he got many visitors.

She knocked on the cold metal, the sharpness of it stinging her knuckles. The rain still came down, soaking her to the bone. She worried she was too late, or that she would never get an answer. And then the door opened, creaking like it hadn’t moved in years. Maybe it hadn’t.

There was an old man inside, one with a head of white and grey, with wrinkled and paper-white skin framing kindly blue eyes.

“Hello,” said the old man. “May I help you?”

“I’m sorry to bother you,” she said. “But I’ve heard the stories, and I just had to meet you. I’m a big fan.”

He laughed a bit, but opened the door to let her in. She kept her eyes fixed on him, the sound of the rainwater dripping from her skin to the floor through the rickety metal staircase the only sound once the man closed the door.

“I didn’t realize people knew of me. Certainly not enough to be a fan,” he said, gesturing for her to follow him down the stairs.

“Well, you’re Jack Kline, aren’t you? The hunter? You’re a legend.”

“Legendary isn’t always a good thing. Thank you, though,” Jack said, pausing to regain his balance by leaning on the stair rail as they reached the floor. Though he was spry for his age, stairs were still an effort. “But since you seem to know so much about me, why don’t you tell me about you?”

“Well, I’m a hunter. Or trying to be, anyway. My name’s Grace.”

Jack smiled, beckoning her forward. She looked around in wonder at all the old, _old_ technology she saw. At the shelves upon shelves of books. Real, ancient paper books.

“That’s a beautiful name,” he said. “Oh! Forgive me. You must be cold. Would you like a towel and some hot chocolate?”

“That’d be great. Thank you, Mr. Kline.” Grace rubbed up and down her arms a bit. She really was freezing.

“Just Jack is fine.”

It wasn’t long before he returned with a towel, blanket, and steaming mug. He gestured to a chair at the long library table, and put her mug down next to an empty glass. He sank down opposite her, into a chair with a cushion tacked to it like Grace’s grandmother used to use.

With a great big exhale, Jack pulled his cardigan closer around himself, settling back. He was all skin and bones.

“What brings you all this way, miss Grace? I haven’t exactly been out and about in… well. In years.”

Grace took a sip of the cocoa, wondering how to begin. She’d dreamed of meeting him ever since she’d heard her father’s first bedtime story about the Winchesters, how they saved the world again and again.

_“Assholes, the lot of them,” he’d said. “Batshit insane, all three of ‘em. But they save our skins over and over, so no matter how much they piss ya off, if you ever meet a Winchester you just say thanks. And then talk smack when their backs are turned.”_

“I read the gospels,” she blurted. “The Winchester gospels. I practically binged them. Twice in a month.”

“All of them?” Jack asked, eyebrows in his hair.

“God, yeah. Outdated fantasy is my specialty. Especially if it’s kind of bad.”

Jack laughed again, the tail end of it turning into a wisp of a cough.

“Yes, well. My grandfather was certainly not the best of writers. But, Grace- I’m not in those books.”

Grace tugged the blanket more securely around herself. “Yeah, but my dad’s a hunter. Mostly a stationary one. We sort of heard about you through the grapevine, you know? And once I found out the Sam and Dean in my crappy books were real, and they had some superhero kid on the team, I just- I wanted to know everything about you.”

In the silence that followed, she realized how that sounded.

“No, no, not like- I was twelve, and you’re a hero, and-”

“It’s alright,” Jack said. “Maybe on any day before this I’d be more apprehensive, but you have good timing. Today’s a good day to talk. What do you want to know?”

“I- I want to know everything. Your life story. Why you disappeared when you were barely fifty. Everyone thought you were dead, but I-”

“You kept digging for stories,” he finished. “That means you’ve got the mind of a hunter. A good one, one who knows to do the research before you pull the trigger.”

Grace nodded emphatically. “Of course. Not all monsters are bad, everyone knows that.”

Jack smiled, clearing his throat to cover another cough. “I’m glad the times are changing.” He shifted in his seat, leaning forward. The cushion squeaked.

“My life story. I guess you want to know how I went from full time hunting with Sam and Dean to a lonely old man in an even older bunker?”

“Anything you’re willing to tell me.” Grace leaned forward, eyes blown wide. “I want to hear it all.”

“I’m afraid that would take more time than I have. Are you alright if I skip the beginning?”

“You mean your birth? So it’s… it’s true that you’re a nephilim?”

“Ah.” Jack leaned back, sadness pooling in the blue of his eyes, but drowned out by kindness. “I was. But I’m not anymore. I haven’t been for a while. To get there, though, we have to start with the worst day of my life. The day my father died.”

“Lucifer?” Grace gasped, voice a hoarse whisper and her fingers clutching the porcelain mug too hard.

“No. My chosen father, Castiel.”

“Castiel,” she breathed. “He’s in the gospels. The hunting community, we all thought he went back to Heaven or something. There hasn’t been a sighting since 2019.”

“We didn’t talk about it much, Sam and Dean and I. It was too hard. Especially for me.”

“How did it happen?”

Jack brought his own mug to his lips, taking a long sip. She hadn’t realized he’d brought a drink in for himself.

“On a hunt, of course. A long, long, time ago.”

\-------

_It was a witch, you see. Fairly basic. She’d killed five people in the town, and we’d finally gotten her cornered. But she was a powerful witch, and we weren’t prepared for just how powerful._

\-------

“Sam!” Dean tossed Sam his gun, lunging out of the way of a falling support beam. It was always a rickety warehouse, wasn’t it?

The witch laughed, chestnut curls bouncing as she tossed her head and flicked her wrist to throw Sam to the side. The gun clattered to the ground, out of reach.

Cas was advancing on her with his blade drawn, and Jack was scrambling to pick himself up from the ground and get back into the fight. The moment he did, though, the witch fixed her eyes on him and grinned. She flicked her hand and sent a beam of light in his direction. A curse. He hit the ground again, having thrown himself to dodge the blast. Cas knelt to check on him, Jack shrugging him off.

“Having fun yet, boys?” She laughed again. “I’m just getting started.”

She made to throw another curse at them, but Sam fired a witch-killing bullet through her back as the last word left her lips. Cas and Jack couldn’t move out of the way quickly enough, and Cas took the curse full blast, shoving Jack to the side. There was a buzz like a static shock on his shoulder where Cas’ hand had been, but he scarcely felt it.

What he felt was the shock and terror of watching Cas get eaten alive by the curse, his body convulsing before he disappeared. The three remaining hunters stared at the empty space where Cas had been, in a beat of desperate silence before the realization sank in. When it did, Jack felt himself scream.

\--------

“Oh my god,” Grace said. “I can’t imagine… watching it happen…”

“The nightmares lasted years,” Jack admitted. “But, life happens. Death happens. And most every son will eventually have to live without their father.”

“I thought Sam and Dean were your dads. The stories-”

“The stories don’t know everything,” he said, a finger tapping lazily on his mug handle. “Sam and Dean were my dads too, but Cas was- it was different with him. It being different doesn't mean I loved the others any less, but losing Cas felt like losing the sky. At that age, kids shouldn’t have to think about losing a parent. Let alone watch it happen.”

“How old were you?”

“Oh, about two.”

Grace felt her jaw drop. “So… so that part was true too?”

“Would you believe it if I told you I was only seventy-nine?” There was a sparkle in his eye, a reminder of the boy long since left in the past, but never fully outgrown.

“I don’t mean to be rude, but you look older.”

“Mm. Physically, I am ninety-three. Skipping out on my physical childhood does have its drawbacks, it seems.”

“I’m sorry,” Grace said, her mug abandoned on the table now, the cocoa gone cold.

“Don’t be. It’s alright. Now, where was I?”

\-------

_We drove home with failure hanging in the air, thick as pea soup. I cried more than I wanted to admit on that drive. I remember I faked falling asleep to try and hide it._

\------

They didn’t do much for a funeral. How could they, without a body?

Of course they looked for a way to reverse it. Never let it be said that they didn’t try. But a killing curse cast at the same moment of a witch’s death seemed to be as permanent as it got in the world of magic.

They burned a cereal box and a photograph in the grass outside the Bunker, Jack watching the flames with red rimmed eyes. Dean said a few words. Sam whispered something, maybe a prayer.

When they asked him if he wanted to speak, all Jack could do was shake his head.

He’d missed his chance to say the things he should have said. He’d just have to live with that, because saying them to the charred remnants of a cereal box sure wasn’t going to make the pain go away. And it certainly couldn’t do Cas justice.

\-------

“If that had been the end of it, I suppose I would have moved on, as a person always will. Grief does fade, over time.”

“But that wasn’t the end, was it?” Grace could hear in Jack’s tone that it wasn’t, clear as day.

“It wasn’t,” Jack confirmed.

\-------

_We took some time without hunts, just to get ourselves together. I was taking it badly. Of course I was, I was only a child. But a few days after, near a week, I saw him._

\-------

Jack couldn’t sleep. He’d try, toss and turn and stretch and take deep breaths, but nothing worked. Every time he closed his eyes he saw Cas die, and he knew it would only get worse if he sank into dreams.

All of a sudden white light flashed at the foot of his bed, and Cas was lying on the floor, totally whole.

“Cas?” Jack shot upright, his voice breaking.

“Jack, what happened?” The words had barely left his mouth before he disappeared again, plunging Jack’s room back into darkness.

“Sam! Dean!”

\-------

_They came running, of course. I told them what I saw, and though they didn’t believe me they indulged my incessant nagging to look for traces._

\-------

“I’m telling you, I _saw_ him. He was here.” Jack sat on his bed with his arms crossed, Sam standing next to him. The lights in his room were on full blast, and it seemed far too bright for his tired eyes.

Dean swept the footboard with the EMF meter, coming up blank. They didn’t know if angels could become ghosts, but they didn’t see any harm in checking.

“Kid, it was probably just a dream,” Dean said, exhausted but making an effort to be understanding.

“Grief can do a lot of funny things to the mind,” Sam added, settling a hand on Jack’s arm. “It’s normal to imagine stuff like this.”

“I didn’t imagine it!” Jack had to take a moment to breathe, so that he didn’t scream or break something. “It was real. I know it.”

Sam and Dean just looked at each other with sad, sad eyes.

\-------

“What happened next?” Grace asked.

“Life went on,” Jack shrugged. “Over time I convinced myself that it had been a dream, and I tried to move on. Mostly, I failed at it. I missed my father every day. But we went back to hunting, since there were people to save. That didn’t change just because one of ours didn’t make it.”

“But you didn’t imagine it, did you?”

Jack’s smile was pinched. More of a grimace, really.

“No. I didn’t.”

\-------

_The next time it happened we were on a hunt, in a motel. We were cleaning the weapons, talking shop, when the same flash of light came. And I knew without a doubt that it was real this time._

\-------

Sam, Dean, and Jack stared at the body in a heap on the floor of their motel room.

“Do you see him too?” Jack asked, barely audible.

“Yeah,” Dean whispered, at the same time as Sam nodded, and then the three of them were lunging forward, their touch confirming that what they saw was real.

They got Cas settled on one of the beds, the angel blinking up at them, his confusion clear.

“What’s happening?” he asked. Jack fought against the lump in his throat at the sound of his voice.

“Cas, what’s the last thing you remember?” Sam asked, frantically pushing buttons on his phone. Rowena’s voice came through the other end, Sam hastily explaining the situation to her in a hushed tone as Cas turned to Jack and Dean.

“The witch, in Idaho. It feels like just a moment ago.” His eyes searched Jack’s, looking for what was wrong so that he could make it better.

“It’s been a year since that hunt, Cas,” Dean said, breathless.

Sam came closer, put a hand on Cas’ shoulder. He had Rowena on speaker phone, and they listened with rapt attention as she spoke.

“From what Samuel’s told me, it sounds like Castiel’s a nick in the threads of time,” she explained. “The spellcaster being killed as she was casting the spell to kill him must have warped her magic and sent him time hopping instead. I’m on my way now, but you’ll need a spell to tether him or he’ll be pulled away again in the next few minutes. You should have the ingredients on hand, I’ll walk you through it.”

Sam and Dean went racing outside to the car to get the supplies, Rowena listing off the instructions with calm authority. Jack clutched at Cas’ hand.

“Jack, hey. It’s alright. I’m alright,” Cas murmured, trying to calm him down.

“I should have known it wasn’t a dream,” Jack said, a tear falling. “I’m so sorry. I should have known that you were alive, I’m sorry…”

“Shh, it’s not your fault. I’m here now, and we’re going to fix it, okay?”

The door flew open, colliding with the opposite wall as the Winchesters came running back inside with the spell ingredients. They started placing them around the bed, but Jack stayed rooted in place, kneeling next to Cas.

Castiel flickered, and Sam started chanting in Latin.

“No,” Jack sobbed. “No, don’t leave me. Not again.”

“Jack, you’re going to be alright.” Cas put his hand on Jack’s cheek, thumbing away the tears. “Promise me you’re going to be alright.”

He flickered again, and Jack felt as if he were floating, removed from his body.

“Dammit, Sam, it’s not working!” Dean shouted.

“Jack, promise me.”

And then Cas was gone, leaving Jack holding on to empty air.

\--------

“What did you do then?” Grace asked, voice quiet. Face contorted in somber sympathy.

“There was nothing to be done. Rowena came, and we tried. But without him physically being there, we couldn’t bring him back. We had to go on knowing that he was alive and floating through time, just lost to us. Somehow, that was worse.”

“I can imagine,” she said.

Jack wheezed, his breath stuttering. Grace lunged forward as if to catch him, but Jack held up a hand. “I’m fine. I’m just old. When you get to be my age you’ll get used to the idea that death can come for you any old day. And sometimes that means struggling for air.”

“I think you should rest,” she said. “I’ll come back later, or I can just go for good. I shouldn’t have bothered you.”

“No, don’t go,” Jack resettled himself in his chair. “There isn’t time for you to go.”

“Well… if you’re sure.”

“I am,” he said, giving her a kind smile.

Grace nodded, biting at her lip. “Did you ever see him again?”

“Not for a long time.”

\--------

_You see, I’d had a sort of run in with death earlier in the year that Cas died. And my grace was gone, but slowly coming back. Over the decades I aged, but with my grace regenerating the process was slowed down a bit. Took a few years off, so to the untrained eye it looked like I just took good care of myself. When I hit age twenty I looked about forty-five. Sam and Dean were wrinkled and grey by then, Dean with a bad leg. His right leg, so of course he grumbled every time he had to leave the house since he couldn’t drive the whole time anymore._

_The Winchesters and I just kept going in those years, stopping the world ending crises as they came. Sam and I digitized the Bunker’s library, and in doing that I found a hobby. It was the most fun I’d had since that witch hunt, so Sam suggested I do it for a living. I went to the University of Kansas when I was about ten, got a degree in history. Dabbled in some anthropology and astronomy, got a job as an archivist at a museum. Not too far from home. I was back there eating their cereal at least once a week, and I hunted when a case came by or I was called._

_I didn’t see Cas again ‘til I was twenty-four, and by then I thought I’d gotten used to the guilt._

\-------

Jack sat in his apartment, bent over a desk at a time when it was simultaneously far too early and far too late to be awake. The light from his laptop bathed his face in blue-white, a scan of an ancient tablet displayed there. His pencil’s scratching on a notepad was the only sound, his brow furrowed as he attempted to translate.

The flash of light behind him made his blood run cold.

\-------

_I called Sam and Dean, but they were a half hour away. And that spell Rowena had given us ages ago was only a temporary fix, and it wasn’t guaranteed. I worried that we would run out of time, but Cas, who’d always been practical, was just… calm._

\-------

“I need to call them again. We should stay on the phone.”

Jack was pacing a hole in the carpet, Cas watching him with sad eyes from his perch on the couch.

“They’re coming, Jack. Just relax.”

He finally sat down, exhaling all in a rush. Cas smiled at him, so gently that Jack could cry.

“Tell me everything. I’ve missed so much.” His gaze narrowed in on the computer behind Jack’s head. “Is that Minoan?”

“Yeah, I- I work in a museum now. A lot of translation work. I still hunt on the side, but…” he trailed off, unable to keep going.

“Jack?” Cas hedged, a hand on his arm.

It was the touch that sent him over the edge, dissolving into tears. Cas gathered him into his arms, Jack gripping the trench coat in his fist and fighting to breathe through the sobs.

“I’m so _sorry_ , Cas,” he managed.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Cas assured, running a hand through his hair. It felt so different now that Jack was older, both inside and out, but he’d missed it. Missed any closeness at all. How could he ever have moved on when he knew Cas was still out there? He was a terrible son.

“I abandoned you,” Jack said. “I should have kept looking, made a deal, found a spell-”

“No,” Cas pulled back to look Jack in the eyes. “No. You moved on, you built a life. A good life. I’m _proud_ of you. Don’t ever think you should throw that away for me.”

“What does it matter? You’re still alive, and I shouldn’t- I can’t-”

“Your life matters, Jack. You-”

\-------

“In the breath before he finished his sentence, he was gone again. Time was crueler than it had ever been before.”

Grace sighed, eyes downcast. “This is when you quit hunting, isn’t it?’

Jack nodded. “I quit everything. I quit my job at the museum, I sold my apartment, and I dropped off the grid. My radio silence for the next six years must have given Sam a hundred stress ulcers.”

“Six years?”

“I had to find a way to get Cas back. I just had to. I decided to devote myself to studying magic, so I could make a spell that could reach through the folds of time. I went all around the country, sometimes out of it, from coven to coven. Rowena found me bleeding out on one of their altars after I’d trusted the wrong people, and she brought me back here. The Winchesters weren’t exactly happy with me, but they agreed to support my search. I think that was because they'd finally realized they weren’t going to talk me out of it.”

Jack dissolved into another coughing fit.

“I should really call a doctor,” Grace said, worrying at her hands. Jack waved her off.

“Don’t bother. You wanted my story, and you went to a lot of trouble to track me down. I’m not going to turn you away without it.”

\-------

_Rowena tutored me for the next few years. Eventually, she said I surpassed Sam’s level of skill, and he was really very good by then. We built a spell that could recreate the curse, in a way, and try to send me to Cas if we couldn’t pull him to us. But it was risky._

\-------

“Jack, dear,” Rowena said. “No matter how many protection spells we heap on, if I strike you with a curse meant to kill then it’s going to do just that.”

Jack sighed, flopping a book shut with a resounding smack. “I told you that I have enough of my grace regenerated to catch the curse. It’ll burn it out of my system. I won’t die.”

“But your grace will burn right out.”

She sighed and came closer, laying her hand atop his. “I know you’ve been working to find a way for years, but there just isn’t one. This is the last thing he’d want you to do, Jack. You know that.”

“I owe it to him to try, Rowena,” Jack said, eyes closed. “He gave up so much for me, and I just took him for granted. I need to do this. Because if there’s the slightest chance that I can get him back…”

“Even if it means giving up your grace?”

Jack met her eyes. “If we don’t tell Sam and Dean, they can’t stop us.”

“Oh, lad. There’s just no talking you out of this, is there?”

\--------

_We went ahead with the spell. Rowena wasn’t happy about it, but eventually I convinced her. And you know what? I don’t regret it._

\--------

Rowena’s curse hit, the electricity latching on to the grace in his body and making every cell scream. He could feel it full force for a scant second, and then he found his senses muted like they were clogged up with cotton candy. He was standing in a void. Not the Empty, he knew, but a hollow of time where no living creature was ever meant to go.

“Jack?” Cas stared at him, looking no different than the last time Jack had seen him.

“It worked,” Jack breathed. “Rowena!” he called, praying she could hear him. “He’s here! Pull us out!”

“What are you doing here?” There was a frantic edge to Cas’ voice. “How… how old are you?”

“I’m almost forty. Rowena!”

“Jack, look at me.”

Jack did, feeling his heart twist at seeing the father he’d failed so terribly looking back at him, not having aged a day. Not that Cas really did anyway, and certainly not at the rate of a human, but Jack appearing older still screamed _wrong_.

“I’m rescuing you,” Jack said. “I’ve been studying magic, and Rowena and I recreated the curse that sent you here. It should be working by now.”

“What happened to the museum? To hunting?”

“This is more important.” Jack turned in a circle, still calling for Rowena. Cas caught his arm.

“What happened to you? You were happy, and now…”

It took all of Jack’s effort not to break down. “It’s going to be okay. I just have to get you out. This is our chance.”

“Don’t throw your life away for me. Please, Jack, don’t do that.” Cas was begging. Jack had never heard him beg anyone for anything before.

“Why isn’t it working?” Jack asked, getting panicky. And then he flickered, in and out, just like Cas had all the previous times.

“Let me go, Jack,” Cas pleaded. “You can do it. You have to let me go.”

“No!”

And Jack was back in the Bunker, alone, in a feverish and graceless body. 

Still fatherless.

\-------

“Did you get sick?” Grace asked. “Everything I’ve read about nephilim…”

“Ah, yes. The lore.” Jack smiled to himself. “I did get sick, but not like the last time. Not enough to kill me, since Rowena had applied those protection spells. By the time the fever had worked itself out, I was just a plain old human. One that aged into what you see now.”

“That’s where the story ends, isn’t it?”

“Just about. The years passed, all long and quiet. Rowena went off to somewhere, but I’m sure she’s still around. The Bunker emptied out. Sam and Dean passed -natural causes- and within a few days of each other, too. Losing them wasn’t quite as bad, because I’d had more time with them. And I knew they were at peace.”

“And you’ve just been here ever since? All by yourself?” Sensing it was nearing the time for her to leave, Grace stood and started to fold up her blanket, the towel she’d used upon entering just barely damp on the back of another chair, having had a few long hours to dry.

“I took up writing. Or I tried to- seems I inherited the skill from my grandfather.” They both breathed out sad little laughs.

“Thank you for the visit,” Jack said, after a moment. “It was unexpected, but with what little time I’ve got- it was a good way to spend it.”

“You keep talking about time. What do you...” Grace frowned, trying to connect the dots. When she did, all she could do was look at Jack with tears pooling in her eyes.

“You’re perceptive,” he noted. “That’s another mark of a great hunter, you know.”

“Thank you,” she said, not sure what else there could possibly be to say. Everything, and nothing. “Meeting you- you live up to the legend. Exceed it, actually.”

“The pleasure was all mine. You go and keep the world safe now, okay?”

“Yeah,” Grace said. “I’ll try.”

\-------

It was only an hour or so after Grace left that Jack saw the flash of light he’d been waiting for, and turned to see Cas sitting in the chair next to him.

“You’re home,” Cas said, looking around. “How long has it been?”

Jack’s lungs caught on his inhale, sending him hacking. Cas put a hand on his back, coming closer and worrying in that way Jack had missed so dearly. The way that had ceaselessly annoyed him when he was a kid.

“Too long,” he managed. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

“You’re… where’s your grace, Jack?”

“I wondered if you’d be able to sense that,” Jack mused, smiling at Castiel as best he could through his misty eyes. “I gave it up for the spell. The one to contact you.”

Cas’ face contorted in horror. “No. No, Jack, it’ll kill you!”

“Rowena and I fixed my body up this time, so I should have ten more years from now. My grace being gone- that’s not what will kill me.” Jack nodded to the glass that had been on the table since before his visitor had come a-knocking, the glass that sat empty but still sticky with the few drops of its contents that remained clinging to the sides.

It didn’t take Cas long to determine what the glass had held- a potion easily strong enough to kill a frail old human, but brewed with built-in failsafes to withstand angelic healing.

“No,” he breathed, looking upset enough that Jack felt another twinge of guilt beneath his growing haze as his heart valiantly fought the potion. His time was nearly over. “You can’t, Jack! You said you could have another decade.”

“I have to. Because I studied what’s keeping you trapped. For _years_. And it’s me, Cas. I’m dragging you through time with me. The spell, the curse that went wrong? You touched me, and it connected us. You're stuck like this because of _me_. And if I die when we’re together, you’ll be set free. And we’ll reset.” He wheezed again, vision blurring. “This is out only chance for this to work. There's not enough time for another shot."

Jack placed a withered hand on his father’s shoulder and squeezed with all his feeble strength. Funny enough, he thought what he could manage while being physically ninety-three was what he could have managed if he’d ever been physically two.

“I told you not to throw your life away for me,” Cas said. An admonition through desperation, vocalized through a watery kind of hopeless despair.

“It’s not for you. Of course it is, but- but it’s also for me. For the child that I was, because even though he can be a brat sometimes... he needs you, Cas. And he regrets never telling you he loves you.”

“Oh, Jack,” Cas shifted to hold him as he wheezed, heart slowing to a stop. “It’s alright. I’m here.”

“It’s a second chance,” Jack whispered. “We’re gonna be okay.”

“Yes, we are.” Jack closed his eyes as Cas smoothed a hand through his hair, cupping his head into the crook of his shoulder as Jack took his final breath. “I’m going to make sure you’re alright. I promise.”

\-------

This time, when the witch fired her second curse, Castiel knew it was coming. He got himself and Jack out of the way just in the nick of time, tackling the boy and bringing them both to the floor.

“Cas? Are you okay?”

Cas just took Jack -young, sweet, two-year-old Jack- into his arms, unable to say a word.

After all, some things really couldn’t ever be described.

Some things were best left to time.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments are much appreciated. I'd love to know what you thought :)


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